talislanta

Known for its non-traditional fantasy setting when it debuted in 1986, the Talislanta RPG featured hundreds of unusual races, creatures, and archetypes, and for a series of ads that ran under the headline, “No Elves”. Thirty years later, premiering in 2016, is a new vision for Talislanta. The game is called Talislanta: The Savage Land. TSL is set in an earlier era in Talislanta’s history: a post-apocalyptic ‘dark ages’ hinted at in several of the original Talislanta books.

Where the first Talislanta was set many centuries after a cataclysm known as The Great Disaster, TSL takes place just a few years after this catastrophe, which the inhabitants of this era refer to as The Fall. In this post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, the great civilization of the Archaens is no more. The last kingdoms have fallen, and the sorcerer-kings have fled or been killed by their own creations. With them went all knowledge of spell-casting, leaving only primitive rituals and superstitions. In this milieu, Talislanta is truly a savage and dangerous land, ruled by wild tribes and beast-folk consumed by the constant struggle to survive.

The game world still has “no elves”, but rather features a host of unique races such as the Drakken, massive reptilian humanoids whose ancestors once ruled the entire continent of Talislanta, and the Talosians, intelligent automatons created by the technomancers of old Archaeus. Each of these so-called archetypes forms the basis for player characters

The setting and characters of Talislanta: The Savage Land will premiere in the webcomic “Tales of the Savage Land” that launches in December 2015.